What an extraordinary day! After a relatively poor afternoons detecting in the water at one of Perths most popular beaches I returned to my ute and now in a towel threw my wetsuit in the back. I was thinking I must check my phone to see if I had any messages when I turned to see a man on the road and a bike in the air! I rushed down the road (in a towel) to find the man had gone over the handle bars when a car had left the curb in front of him. He was not at all comfortable and may have broken his shoulder besides a serious dose of gravel rash. Luckily a lifegaurd was not far away and was able to take over as while this was going on I’d left my metal detector sitting on the back of my ute. The

Great work Niki! This made it all possible.

ambos duly arrived and it was now that I got in the car and checked my phone. I noticed there was a message from Niki regarding two lost rings. I called her straight away and found the message had been left 3 days before! She had lost her diamond and platinum wedding set in the water at Whitfords beach whilst on holiday here. From England she now lives in Malaysia but was currently in Melbourne!

As usual the weather forecast was getting worse again over the next few days so being christmas day and only being 20 mins drive I thought it best to have a go asap. I asked Niki if she could send a google earth placemark of where she thought she’d lost the ring and photos of the rings I was looking for while I drove straight to Whitfords beach.

That would be one of em!

After seeing the rings and the location on my phone, and much to the astonishment of the last beach goers, I ran down to the waters edge just as the sun was setting, gouged a start line in the sand with my foot and started searching at some pace into and out of the water, in out, in out, in pulltab, out tent peg, in platinum diamond wedding band, BIG yehaaaa!

I was so excited I almost forgot theres another ring that should be around here somewhere. A few more sweeps of my coil and there it was, another super soft signal (platinum can be very hard to detect).

And that would be its brother!

I peered into my sandscoop and sure enough, there was Niki’s lovely diamond engagement ring, sparkling in my headlights beam!

I called Niki to tell her the wonderful news and when she answered and asked how I was, I was all of a sudden speachless, then I simply said ‘merry christmas Niki!’

I guess it was 11 pm or so in Melbourne when I called, and so it would seem that santa left his very best for last this year…